


Deserts Suck (But Thank God for Boyscouts)

by MK_Yujji



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 20:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Yujji/pseuds/MK_Yujji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Steve get shot down in the desert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deserts Suck (But Thank God for Boyscouts)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for _phoenixmetaphor_ for the cap_ironman holiday gift exchange.

“It’s fried.”

Steve jerked to the side as a smoking piece of... something electronic landed beside his knees. Frowning, he nudged it with a knuckle. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but he could tell that it was beyond even Tony’s help. The plastic bits had melted onto the metal bits while other important looking bits were still smoldering. He didn’t have to be as technologically savvy as Tony to know that that wasn’t a good sign for anything electronic.

He looked up at his companion. Despite the situation, he couldn’t help but smile faintly. Tony was glaring at the piece like it had personally offended him. “That’s not terribly surprising, right? Fiery crashes do that.”

“Hmph. You’d think government grade aircraft would be made of sterner stuff.” Disdain fairly dripped from every word as he turned his glare on the debris that littered a wide stretch of the desert behind them. “A Stark product would have been salvageable.”

Steve wasn’t sure about that, given the speed in which the plane had been dropping when it had hit the ground, but he just shrugged. Tony bragged a lot, but Steve had come to realize that he could almost always back it up.

“At least the parachutes held up,” Steve offered with a gesture at the heavy chutes that he’d managed to roll up into something more manageable. While Tony had been off trying find or fashion some kind of beacon, Steve had focused on more immediate concerns.

He glanced up at the sun’s position, trying to guestimate how long it had been since their small plane had begun its plummeting free fall into the foreign desert they’d been crossing. It was difficult to be sure, though. He hadn’t been paying as much attention as he should have been.

There’d been no reason to suspect he’d need to.

He sighed and looked back at Tony. “Can you tell what happened?”

Tony snorted. “I told you before we jumped. EMP. Probably on an anti-aircraft missile. I could have gotten power back up.”

“Before or after we became part of the charred debris?”

They’d already had this argument once, before Steve had finally just picked Tony up and tossed him out of the plane.

He’d never bet against Tony’s genius, but neither was he willing to wager both their lives when there were perfectly serviceable parachutes.

A surviving homing beacon would have been nice, though.

Tony made a face at him. “Before. Probably. Most likely. Like, at least 89% definitely before.”

“And I’m not willing to risk your life or mine on 89%.” He slipped his arms through the strap he’d wrapped around the parachutes and stood up, shouldering his makeshift pack before turning to looking at the wreckage. “I managed to scavenge a few supplies. We need to put some distance between this site and us, but we’re not going to be able to travel far in this heat and night isn’t going to be much better when it gets cold.”

“You know, if someone had warned me before they pushed me out of the damned plane, we might still have my phone.”

“I did warn you. You’re the one who refuses to listen to anything I say,” Steve snapped back before forcing himself to take a deep breath. Tony always managed to pull the worst out in him, but snapping at each other wouldn’t do them any good. “I’m sorry, but we were running out of time. The surface hits faster than you expect.”

There was a long moment of silence before Tony huffed and looked away.

“I don’t like deserts.”

It wasn’t an apology, but it was an explanation and Steve relaxed slightly. An explanation from Tony Stark was better than any apology from anyone else.

Steve pushed to his feet and looked around.

Their plane was a long path of debris, some still burning. There was no way to hide it. “How long til this is found by whoever shot us down? Any chance we can evade them when they do get here?”

Shrugging, Tony looked down across the desert sand. “Depends on who was doing the shooting. Technology is a crapshoot in this part of the world. Having access to EMP doesn’t necessarily mean they have access to decent satellites or other assorted tracking apparatus.” He paused, head tilting to one side as he pointedly faced away from the body of their pilot.

Steve had done his best, but the desert wasn’t an ideal locale for burying bodies. He hadn’t wanted to leave it exposed, either. The man had made a valiant effort at stabilizing the aircraft before a secondary explosion had rocked them violently, ending his life with flying debris.

A decent burial was the least of what he deserved.

“Who do you think was shooting?” Steve asked, dragging his mind back to the task on hand. There was nothing more to be done for their pilot. He had to focus on keeping them alive and that meant knowing as much about what they were facing as they could figure out.

“Well, if it was a personal attack against Iron Man and Captain America, we wouldn’t have made it to the ground. If it was against Tony Stark - don’t look at me like that, oddly enough there are people in remote corners of the world who know one and not the other - and ‘accompanying military bodyguard’, which is still absolutely hysterical, by the way, then we’re probably pushing at the limits of our time. We’ve been down probably... a full half hour now? Forty-five minutes? Assuming they weren’t Stark Industries weapons, even the longest range EMPs would only be an hour or so out. Unless they were launched from subs, at which point we have bigger problems than I really want to think about. I mean, Russians? North Koreans? Once you get out in the water, the possibilities multiply exponentially and-”

“Tony.” Steve cut the genius off before the man could spin off topic. “Let’s not borrow more trouble than we already have. Assume land based.”

“Well, this is the Sahara. Most of the countries that share it are either fighting each other or fighting themselves. Best case scenario? We just flew into a new no-fly zone and they were shooting everyone down. No one will come look for us at all. No hostiles, at any rate. Pepper will. And Rhodey. SHIELD, maybe? The Army probably wouldn’t let their very own Star Spangled Man with a Plan vanish on them again without at least trying to find him.”

The nickname made him grit his teeth, but Steve was getting better at ignoring those taunts. He was learning that sometimes that was just how Tony interacted with people. It could be worse… Maria Hill was alternately Iron Maiden or Ice Queen depending on how aggravating Tony felt like being.

“And worst land-based scenario?”

Tony glanced at his watch and frowned. He tapped at it a few times and shrugged. “If you don’t hear anything descending on us as we speak, we’ve probably got another fifteen minutes... Half hour? Or we’ve got all the time in the world. Could go either way. Fifty/fifty.”

Looking around again, Steve sighed. “I found some bottled water, but I don’t think it’ll last more than a few days, even if we ration it carefully. SHIELD should be able to find us in that time… Right?”

Tony just snorted. “Sure, Spangles.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but wonder of wonders, he actually bit it back. That sort of restraint was rare in Tony Stark and Steve appreciated it. “Decision time, then. Do you want to try to make our way back to civilization on our own or do you want to hole up and wait for them to find us?”

“Both choices suck.”

“Tony.”

Rolling his eyes, Tony made a dismissive motion. “Fine, fine. Without knowing where the nearest village or town is, trying to hike it out is probably suicidal. More suicidal. I don’t suppose you learned how to make a desert camp in boyscouts? Army? Or are you just naturally imbued with Survival Knowledge 202, desert addition?”

“I was never _in_ the boyscouts and the Army was sending me into a European winter. Some of the survival skills they taught should transfer. The rest is just common sense. I can understand why it’s hard for you to recognize.” Tony looked more proud than upset by the snapped reply, but Steve forced himself to take a deep breath. Sarcastic repartee was just Tony. He didn’t need to enable it by responding back in kind. “Help me find a few stakes or struts. We can use them to make a shelter with the parachutes. Sit down and conserve our resources until SHIELD or the Army finds us.”

“Aye, aye, Captain, my Captain,” Tony said, offering him a mocking salute.

~*~*~

“Tony.”

“I’m fine.”

Steve sighed and shifted, peering through the darkness to see Tony’s outline. His night vision was greatly improved by the serum and it wasn’t hard to see the tremors that wracked the smaller body.

He hadn’t noticed the night before because the adrenaline crash coupled with the physical exhaustion of digging a shelter and the heat of the day had knocked them both out more quickly than either had anticipated. There hadn’t been much time to register the dropping temperatures once nightfall had snuck up on them.

Their second day stranded in the desert had been different, though. It had been quiet - as quiet as any place could be when Tony Stark was in the vicinity - and almost lazy as they waited out the heat under the sand covered lean-to that they’d managed to put together. It didn’t raise very far off the ground, but it was enough to sit under and protect them from the sun.

The temperature differential was a problem, though. Steve was no doctor, but he doubted it was good for them to be going from hot to cold and back like this.

A particularly hard shiver worked its way over Tony’s back and Steve rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to let Tony suffer needlessly just because of his _pride_. He scooted over and wrapped himself around Tony’s back.

“Hey! Bad touch! Didn’t they teach you about that back in yon Olden Days?”

“Shut up and go to sleep, Tony.”

“I was _trying_ to sleep, but _someone_ decided they needed to get all up in my space like some kind of little kid with a giant sized teddy bear.” Tony wiggled in his arms, making an attempt at escape that was half-hearted at best.

“Well your shivering was keeping me up.”

“We can’t all be super soldiers,” came the mutter.

“Sleep.”

The other man twisted and Steve tightened his grip. “Fuck it, Expendables, I do actually need to breathe.”

“Expend- what?”

“What? No, it’s a- Don’t get all huffy and offended. I’ll explain it to you when we get back civilization where I have access to all the proper teaching paraphernalia. Now ease up and let me-”

Steve let go, not sure if he was offended or not and even less sure if he wanted to help Tony after all, but the genius just twisted around to face him and began poking at his shoulder. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it my way and you are not making me into the little spoon. Now, on your back soldier.”

The words were bad enough, but the tone of voice…

Steve slapped a hand over his face. “Do you _have_ to do that?”

“Get comfortable? Absolutely,” Tony replied as he manhandled Steve into an acceptable position. He sounded amused, pleased that he’d managed to get a rise out of Steve.

Which was absolutely not something he wanted to think about. Steve just sighed and waited for Tony to get situated. When the other was finally still again, he dropped his hand against Tony’s shoulder. “Go to sleep.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Tony muttered, but already his shivering had eased and he sounded sleepy.

Steve took a deep breath and relaxed.

~*~*~

It said something about his life that the heavy, amused stares of a pair of super spies didn’t feel threatening enough to wake him up until one of them actually nudged him with a boot.

He peered up at Clint’s smirk for a moment before taking a deep breath and stretching under the weight of sleeping genius. “Took you long enough.”

Natasha arched a brow from where she was crouched near his head. “Dunno, Cap. You look pretty comfortable.”

“Whuzzit?” Tony shifted, rubbing his face against Steve’s chest before cuddling even closer. “Y’r warm… mmm….”

“Umm….” Steve couldn’t help the way he flushed as Tony’s cuddling got downright inappropriate.

The gleeful look on Clint’s face said that they were never going to live it down.

_end_


End file.
